Rolling Pearl Harbors: The Reality Creators (2C)

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I. Karl Rove and the Death of the Reality-Based Community In 2004, journalist Ron Suskind published an article containing an exchange with a senior Bush administration official. The official dismissed the seriousness of Suskind's work, calling it a part of the "reality-based community," written for people who "believe that solutions emerge from [the] judicious study of discernible reality." Then, the pivotal moment arrived:

"That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality-- judiciously, as you will-- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors" and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

The quote comes from Suskind's October 17, 2004, New York Times Sunday Magazine article titled "Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush-- "a title that perfectly frames the disconnect between faith-based certainty and reality-based analysis. Suskind attributes the quote to "a senior adviser to Bush" without naming him. Later reporting identified the source as Karl Rove, though Suskind never confirmed it officially. The attribution ambiguity is itself revealing-- whether Rove or another senior official, the quote represents the Bush administration's explicit philosophy. The statement gets cited as Bush administration arrogance. But it's more than arrogance-- it's Rove explaining how power works when facts no longer constrain it. The ground shifts from verifiable truth to whoever has enough power to make claims and force behavior based on those claims. Rove wasn't saying the administration could change physical reality. WMDs did not exist in Iraq, and the administration could not force them to exist. He was saying the administration could create political reality through action-- force facts on the ground that alter what's possible, move faster than fact-checking, and make truth irrelevant by ensuring the consequences of action matter more than whether the justification was accurate. Look at Iraq. The administration claimed WMDs and al-Qaeda connections. False. But by the time investigations proved it false, war had started, hundreds of thousands were dead, trillions were spent, and the Middle East was destabilized. The initial lie created a new reality-- occupied Iraq, regional chaos, entrenched U.S. military presence-- that couldn't be undone by proving the justification was fabricated. The Administration acted and created a new reality. While journalists were "judiciously studying" that reality, the administration had moved on to creating the next one.

Rove's Reality Creation in Practice: An Analysis of Election Night 2012

Rove's philosophy wasn't abstract. Election night 2012: Fox News calls Ohio for Obama, ensuring his re-election. Rove challenged his network's decision desk so aggressively that Megyn Kelly walked back on camera to verify. She asked him, "Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better, or is this real?"

Rove kept insisting Republican counties hadn't reported, the call was premature, and more votes were coming. He appeared genuinely shocked that Ohio was going to vote for Obama.

Here's why. Investigative journalist Greg Palast was at Ohio polling stations during early voting. The electoral board was handing absentee ballot applications to Black voters who showed up to vote. Despite being present and prepared to cast their votes, they were handed absentee ballot applications. The tactic was to force Black voters to apply for absentee ballots, which would then be considered provisional and subject to the Republican-controlled electoral board's discretion on their validity, requiring them to wait-- most never complete this process. Systematic suppression.

Palast recognized it immediately. In the middle of the night, he knocked on the door of election protection attorney Bob Fritakis, showed him the application being handed out, and explained what was happening. Fritakis confirmed the practice violated Ohio election law. Fritakis went to a judge. Palast went online. The court ordered polling stations to let early voters cast ballots normally instead of forcing them into absentee applications.

Palast's assessment: without that court order, Obama loses Ohio. Without Ohio, Romney wins the presidency.

The incident explains why Rove melted down on Fox News, says Palast. He expected Romney to win Ohio based on voter suppression that had worked in 2004-- exit polls showed Kerry winning, but Bush got it. In 2012, authorities documented the suppression and halted it before it could influence the outcome.

Someone witnessed the illegal tactic, got it confirmed, and stopped it through courts in time. Rove insisted Fox called Ohio too early because he was reacting to a suppression operation failing. He was unable to cast the expected votes. The voters he expected to turn away voted. Someone documented the suppression and intervened in real time, preventing the expected outcome. The result is adversarial journalism actually working. Palast didn't write about voter suppression after the election. He witnessed it during early voting, recognized it was illegal, found expert confirmation, and stopped it through courts. Journalism acts as a proactive measure, rather than delayed documentation.

The Pattern Continues: 2016 and 2020

Palast documented this pattern in his book How Trump Stole the 2020 Election-- a title that proved prescient since he wrote it BEFORE 2020, predicting Trump would attempt the same provisional ballot manipulation that Rove had used in 2004 and that Trump successfully deployed in 2016.

"Find 11,780 votes-- "Donald Trump in a phone call to Georgia electoral officials on election night in 2020

The pattern: 2004, Bush wins Ohio through suppression that exit polls suggested shouldn't have happened. 2012, Palast intervenes, stops the suppression, and Obama wins. In 2016, similar tactics succeeded again-- Trump won key states where provisional ballot challenges and voter roll purges created the margin. In 2020, Trump's strategy nearly succeeded once more, but he was caught in a recorded phone call, where he was pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find 11,780 votes-- "exactly the margin he needed to flip Georgia.

The Georgia call wasn't metaphorical. Trump literally asked state officials to manufacture votes. "I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have," Trump told Raffensperger on January 2, 2021. The call was recorded. The request was explicit. This represents Rove's approach to reality creation in its most basic form-- seeking to achieve electoral victory through assertion and pressure, regardless of the actual vote count.

Palast's 2012 intervention demonstrates what's possible when adversarial journalism functions in real-time. But the 2016 and 2020 attempts demonstrate how the pattern persists. Rove's reality creation through action continues because journalism can't maintain constant vigilance. Palast can't be at every polling station in every swing state. One journalist intervening in one election doesn't rebuild the adversarial tradition. It proves the principle works-- investigation before action, documentation preventing manipulation, and journalism as democratic defense rather than historical record. But it also reveals the impossibility of scaling this approach without institutional support that no longer exists.

Why Access Journalism Can't Work Against Rove's Model

Access journalism assumes power operates within factual constraints-- that exposing lies generates accountability and that truth matters more than power. But Rove's principle is that creating realities through action matters more than the accuracy of justification. Access journalism becomes complicit.

Rove's principle is that creating realities through action matters more than the accuracy of justification. Access journalism becomes complicit.

By the time journalists verify claims are false, power has already acted on them and created irreversible consequences. Stone, Mencken, and Hersh-- the adversarial tradition-- operate differently. The adversarial tradition assumes that power lies elsewhere. The adversarial tradition treats official justifications as false until they are proven true. Investigation happens before action, not after.

Stone's Gulf of Tonkin reporting didn't wait for the Pentagon Papers. He looked at available evidence in real-time and reported that the attack claims were dubious. Collectively, journalists could have potentially constrained Vietnam's massive expansion. Instead, they mostly amplified official claims. By the time the Pentagon Papers proved them false in 1971, millions were dead.

Hersh's My Lai reporting didn't wait for official investigations. He tracked down veterans who participated, got Army documents, and exposed the massacre while the military was denying it happened. Had Hersh waited for official channels, the massacre would have remained hidden forever.

The temporal dynamics are identical to those described in Part 1 of this series. The truth about the CIA surveillance of Oswald: sixty years after Kennedy's assassination. The truth about the CIA blocking intelligence on hijackers: twenty-four years after September 11th. Truth arrives too late to prevent consequences or generate accountability. The interval between action and exposure exceeds the interval where exposure could constrain power.

Rove dismissed the "reality-based community-- "journalists who believe facts constrain power. What Rove understood: when power acts faster than truth may be established, when the consequences of action exceed the importance of justification, truth becomes politically irrelevant, even if factually correct.

Truth still exists. WMDs either existed in Iraq or they didn't. Claims that they did were false. But the falsehood didn't prevent the war, didn't reverse the invasion once proven false, and didn't generate accountability for those who lied. The "reality" created by acting on false claims-- occupied Iraq, hundreds of thousands dead-- mattered more politically than the claims' falsity.

Democracy requires truth to constrain power in real-time. But truth arrives too slowly. By the time truth is established, power has created a new reality based on new falsehoods. Journalists study that reality judiciously, publish expose's, and win prizes. Don't stop the next cycle just because the investigation occurs after the action rather than before.

II. The Air Force One Propaganda Film: Reality Creation as Historical Record

If Rove's quote explains the philosophy of reality creation, the 2024 AppleTV+ film 9/11: Inside Air Force One shows how that philosophy gets implemented twenty-three years later. The film presents itself as a definitive historical account of Bush's actions on September 11, 2001. Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rove, and Andy Card all provide their "never-before-told" accounts in the film. Why are they telling this story twenty-three years later? They have all written memoirs. Given interviews. Bush's presidential library opened in 2013. What's "never-before-told"? The answer becomes clear watching it: not the information, but the emotional framing and documentary footage "authenticating" the narrative.

The Seven-Minute Reading Session

The film opens with Bush at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, reading "The Pet Goat" with second-graders. Andy Card whispers, "A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack." Bush keeps reading for seven minutes before leaving.

This timeline's been controversial. Why did the president keep reading to children for seven minutes after learning America was under attack? The film presents it as calculated leadership. Bush didn't want to "create panic" or "allow the terrorists to disrupt the lives of these youngsters." Rice backs him up: Bush was "taking in what he'd been told" and "preparing to address the nation."

Look at the footage, though. The footage features multiple camera angles. Professional quality. The footage provides continuous coverage of Bush in the classroom, being informed, and then leaving. Question: Who was filming, and why? The team wasn't a news crew-- they were outside with the press pool. This person was a White House videographer or military photographer creating an official record.

Why were they positioned to capture Card whispering at that exact moment? Were they filming continuously that morning for routine documentation? Alternatively, was someone specifically instructed to ensure that this moment was captured?

Filming doesn't address such an issue because acknowledging it undermines the claim to present a spontaneous historical record rather than a staged reconstruction. Professional filmmakers know extensive, well-lit, multi-angle footage doesn't happen accidentally. When Kennedy got assassinated, Zapruder's amateur film became crucial evidence precisely because it wasn't official documentation-- it was a citizen capturing unexpected tragedy. When Bush learned of the attacks, the footage looked like a carefully documented official record.

It doesn't prove anything was staged. Maybe White House photographers routinely documented presidential visits to elementary schools. Maybe cameras were positioned for other purposes and happened to capture the moment. Maybe the footage that survived got selected from hours of routine documentation. But film presents this footage like it's a transparent window onto historical reality rather than a curated official record requiring scrutiny.

The Mysterious Communication Failure

After leaving the elementary school, Bush boards Air Force One to return to Washington. The film describes how television aboard the plane initially worked, letting Bush and staff watch news coverage. Then, the television mysteriously stopped functioning.

Aboard Air Force 1 on 9/11 communications went wrong. Can you believe it!? Bush says the event was frustrating because "we couldn't see what was happening." Cheney confirms communication difficulties. Rice discusses how challenging it was to coordinate without full information.

Message: Bush operated with limited information due to technical difficulties, making crisis management even more impressive. Obvious questions don't get asked.

Air Force One is among the most technologically sophisticated aircraft in the world. Air Force One is specifically designed to serve as an airborne command center during times of crisis. Communication systems have redundancy upon redundancy built in. Presidents can coordinate military operations globally. They can launch nuclear weapons. They can function as a mobile Pentagon. The notion that its televisions abruptly ceased operation during the most severe assault on American territory challenges credibility.

Was this failure documented in real time? Are there technical reports explaining what malfunction occurred? Or is this detail getting introduced twenty-three years later to explain why decisions got made without apparent awareness of unfolding events? The film doesn't examine these questions. It presents communication failure as an unfortunate technical difficulty rather than a suspicious coincidence requiring investigation.

Who had the sense to raise their mobile phone to grab the malfunctioning TV during te emerency? Further, we're told that all day the president had difficulty reaching leadership in the bunker below the White House. Even worse, the documentary voiceover tells us that leaders in the bunker were falling asleep due to oxygen deprivation-- and they even showed folks falling asleep on the job:

Jeez, more gone wrong! No oxygen to the brain means a limited response to the crisis.

The Routing Question

Most revealing, perhaps, is where Bush and his entourage went after leaving Florida. Instead of returning directly to Washington, Air Force One flew first to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, then to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. Bush only made his way back to Washington that evening. This routing's been controversial because the President's absence seemed like abandonment of leadership.

The film presents extensive justification. Cheney ordered Bush to stay away from Washington for security reasons. Secret Service officials describe specific threats. Bush says he wanted to return immediately but got overruled by the security team.

Examine what's absent, though. Other officials remained in Washington throughout. Cheney was in the White House bunker. Rice was in the White House. Cabinet members were present in their respective departments. Congress is in session. If Washington was genuinely unsafe for the president, why was it safe for everyone else? If the threat was credible enough to keep Air Force One away all day, why weren't other officials evacuated?

The film also doesn't examine what Bush was doing during this time. A brief statement was made at Barksdale. The video conference was conducted by Offutt. But for the bulk of the day-- hours Americans were watching towers collapse, watching the Pentagon burn, and learning about Flight 93-- the president was in transit aboard Air Force One.

The film employs sensationalist tactics in its storytelling to elicit emotional support for the unfolding story and the imminent danger that the "minimal crew and passengers" seemingly faced at every moment. On the way to the airport from the elementary school, Rove "testifies" that the entourage feared a suicide vehicle would bushwhack them. They feared that a plane in the sky, its transponder off, might be air-stalking them. But the whopper told by Bush press secretary Ari Fleisher contained thrills right out of a spy novel, such as The President's Plane Is Missing. "Fleisher tells the viewer of a potential plot to hijack Air Force One:

What Makes This Propaganda Different from a Documentary?

The film lacks a comprehensive critical analysis. A serious historical account would acknowledge controversies, address counterarguments, present competing interpretations, and examine inconsistencies. This film does none of that.

The film portrays the narratives of administration officials as the ultimate truth. It uses official footage as a transparent record rather than curated material requiring scrutiny. It employs emotional manipulation through its score and editing. It frames the twenty-three-year delay as offering a new perspective rather than suspicious timing when participants face no accountability.

What it accomplishes is to provide an answer to the question of where the president was during the events of 9/11. There was no solid answer back then, and it is yet another mystery of firsts for that day. The national mainstream media all asked the same question:

The film's release timing is notable. Released in 2021, the film arrived after Bush had been politically rehabilitated. Subsequent partisan battles eclipsed his administration's failures. The public has largely moved on from the 9/11 questions. If this film had appeared in 2004 during Bush's reelection, every detail would've been examined, every claim challenged, and every participant's credibility questioned. In 2025, it presents itself as a historical document rather than political rehabilitation.

Compare this film to Tucker Carlson's The 9/11 Files. Carlson's documentary has methodological weaknesses. But at least it presents an adversarial stance toward the official narrative. Carlson interviews sources disputing government claims. He examines evidence of intelligence agency malfeasance. He treats official explanations skeptically.

Which film received more mainstream credibility? Apple's production got featured in major media with little critical examination. Reviews treated it as an important historical document. Carlson's documentary got dismissed or attacked, with outlets emphasizing his ideological positioning while avoiding engagement with specific claims.

This differential reception reveals the epistemological crisis. A film presenting an official narrative with no critical examination receives mainstream legitimation, while a film questioning the official narrative is dismissed based on the messenger's political positioning. When citizens seek to understand the events, they have two choices: either they engage in uncritical propaganda that benefits from production values and institutional support, or they risk a commercially and politically compromised critical investigation.

There is no mainstream option combining an adversarial stance with journalistic rigor and institutional resources.

The Propaganda Function

The film serves a specific political function twenty-three years after the attacks. Officials from the Bush administration, who lied about Iraq's WMDs, authorized torture, expanded surveillance without oversight, and created a legal framework for indefinite detention, are allowed to present their version of 9/11 without facing any challenges.

The documentary format provides legitimacy that propaganda cannot achieve. If these officials appeared on cable news defending their 9/11 actions, viewers would recognize it as political spin. Packaged as a historical documentary with production values and emotional music, the same content becomes a "definitive account."

Apple's participation provides corporate credibility. It is a major streaming platform with a reputation for quality programming. Audiences might view Fox News or right-wing media skeptically. Apple TV+ presents itself as a prestige documentary platform rather than a source of propaganda. The format creates the illusion of objectivity while presenting an entirely uncritical account.

The documentary format provides legitimacy that propaganda cannot achieve. If these officials appeared on cable news defending their 9/11 actions, viewers would recognize it as political spin. Packaged as a historical documentary with production values and emotional music, the same content becomes a "definitive account."

This is how power rewrites history: not through crude suppression or obvious censorship, but through production values, emotional manipulation, timing, platform selection, and complete absence of critical examination. Present an official narrative with enough sophistication that it seems like serious history rather than propaganda.

Citizens watching this film twenty-three years later receive the Bush administration's version of events presented as historical truth. Questions about foreknowledge, intelligence failures, suspicious timelines, and routing decisions are all answered by officials whose credibility should be questioned and not trusted.

Film doesn't need to suppress contradicting evidence. It just needs to omit it. It doesn't need to refute critical analysis; it just needs to ignore it. It doesn't need to defend the official narrative; it just needs to present it with enough production quality and emotional weight that it feels true.

This is epistemological capture perfected. There's no need to coerce individuals into believing falsehoods. Present them sophisticated propaganda packaged as a documentary so they don't realize they're watching propaganda. The official narrative may appear as an independent historical investigation, but in reality, participants are rehabilitating their own decisions decades later without any accountability.

When journalism fails, when adversarial investigation is marginalized, and when access to mass audiences requires corporate platforms with political interests, propaganda doesn't need to be crude. It can be sophisticated, well-produced, and emotionally compelling. It can present itself as history while functioning as political rehabilitation. It can succeed by never acknowledging that alternative interpretations exist.

III. The Reality Creation Loop is complete

This is what Rove understood. Empire creates reality. By the time critical investigation examines that reality, empire has moved on to creating new realities. The Bush administration created reality on 9/11 through actions and decisions. The Iraq War created reality through invasions justified by fabricated intelligence. Twenty-three years later, they create a new reality through a documentary presenting their version as historical truth.

Citizens studying that reality judiciously-- reading critical accounts, examining evidence of foreknowledge, questioning official narratives-- don't have access to mass audiences. Their investigation remains marginalized while propaganda receives mainstream distribution through Apple's platform, positive reviews in major media, and treatment as serious historical documentation rather than political rehabilitation.

The interval between action and critical examination exceeds the interval where examination could prevent the next action. The Iraq War was sold through propaganda in real time. Miller's WMD reporting provided crucial legitimation. Critical examination arrived too late to prevent invasion. 9/11 critical examination arrives twenty-three years later and fails to reach audiences getting the official narrative through polished documentary. By then, the next crisis had already transpired, the official narrative had already taken shape, and the production of the next propaganda film was underway.

Palast's 2012 intervention proves adversarial journalism can work-- can investigate in real-time, can prevent manipulation, and can serve a democratic function. But 2016 and 2020 prove one journalist can't rebuild a collapsed tradition. The infrastructure that replaced adversarial journalism-- access relationships, corporate consolidation, patriotic conformity, and political polarization-- continues functioning. Reality is created through action. The reality-based community documents these events after they occur. Documentation arrives too late to constrain power.

This represents the fundamental epistemological crisis. Truth exists. Investigation is possible. Truth exists. Investigation is possible. Palast proved it. The crisis is that truth arrives too slowly to matter politically. Investigation happens too late to prevent consequences. Power acts, creates reality, and moves on. Journalism documents what happened after it's too late to stop it.

Democracy requires truth to constrain power in real-time. But the institutional capacity for real-time constraint has been systematically destroyed. What remains is historical documentation arriving decades late, sophisticated propaganda presenting official narratives as definitive accounts, and independent journalism operating without resources or reach to challenge either.

Rove's dismissal of the reality-based community wasn't just arrogance. It was an accurate description of how power operates when journalism fails its democratic function. We're all studying the reality the empire creates. While we study the situation judiciously, the empire continues to act.

(Part D next)